Isaac switched from beer to coffee, firmly believing he needed a clear head for what he was about to face. It was a small mountain of boxes stacked tight with documents. This so-called leader of the vampires for this city had been busy, and going by the first folder Isaac pulled from the box, it wasn't a good thing. In fact, it was illegal.

"He's abducting humans," Isaac grumbled, flicking through the pages.

"That's common for vampires," Lennon responded. "Have to eat sometime, you know."

"No, he's abducting them for the production of vampires. Is this what you were talking about, Lyla?"

She nodded grimly.

"Bite the human, it creates a hybrid, they can produce with a vampire."

Isaac stopped flicking at a page, it was a report about an insemination attempt.

"Met with resistance," he grumbled. "This needs to go to the cops."

"Don't bother."

He looked at the vampire, wondering what little enlightening bit of information she was going to offer now. It's all she's done for the past half an hour. Anything he said, she'd shoot him down with a more accurate response about her adoptive father.

"He definitely, one hundred percent has the cops in his pocket. You deliver these boxes, and they're just going to give them back to Gamichee and us as well."

Tossing the folder aside, Isaac wondered why they were bothering if nothing could be done. Lyla gave him a sympathetic smile as she collected the next folder out of her box. Instantly she was intrigued but remained silent. She wondered how Lennon would take the information.

He wasn't created at Fielding Hall. He was abducted.

Lyla read the notes about Lennon's parents, who were indebted to Gamichee, couldn't pay him back, so Lennon was taken as payment. They managed to scrape the money together to pay the debt and get their only child back, but it wasn't enough. The end of the notes said that they were terminated.

Carefully Lyla kicked Adley under the table. His eyes darted to hers as she returned the folder to the box between them. She flicked her head, hoping he'd understand what she was doing.

Adley looked at the folder. He knew what it was. His stomach rolled as he picked up the folder and read the first piece of paper. With a heavy sigh, Adley rolled his head back, trying to find a little relief for the sudden wave of stress that had just hit him. There was nothing that he could do. Lennon knew that there would be something about him in these boxes. He expected to find something.

Already regretting it, Adley turned the folder and dumped it in front of Lennon. Then he gave a warning that he would not like the contents. Lennon ran his fingers over the edge, feeling the burn of silence from those around him. That was until he heard a soft sniff and a frustrated huff. Lennon looked up and saw Merissa, her sad gaze down at her own file.

Opening the folder, Lennon pulled it closer and felt the weight of treachery push down on him. Gamichee had been his friend.

They'd played poker together. He'd always been stern but forgiving.

It was nothing but a lie. The deceit wasn't just dished out to Lennon alone. He looked up again and saw that Merissa had it worse. She'd been adopted by Gamichee.

"Did he kill your parents too?"

Merissa nodded, barely keeping it together. She pushed it over the table. Isaac looked at it with a lot of curiosity.

"It would seem that you have siblings," he murmured.

She nodded again, wiping the tears away.

"He's tearing families apart, for what reason? Lennon's parents had the money to pay the debt. Why was that not good enough?"

"Gamichee is supposedly about the numbers," Lennon offered.

His voice was raw with hurt. It was a struggle to swallow, and to remain calm was even worse for him. He'd been robbed of his parents and what could have been a good life. Alternatively, his parents could have been the worst parents on the planet and Gamichee had done him a great service by removing him, but Lennon doubted it. There was no way that this town was filled with terrible parents.

If it was just him, he could have entertained the idea but not when another one of Gamichee's victims was sitting at the same table as him.

"Yet he's taking them down in what is clearly vast numbers."

Something filtered through Isaac's mind. He stared at Lyla as the thoughts started to form. It was soon joined by dread, rising fast and consuming his thoughts. As Isaac stood, the chair scraped over the wooden floor. Everyone lifted their morose gazes, only to watch him flee the room with speed.

Isaac soon returned, his laptop open and in his hand, the other doing a terrible attempt at typing.

"I remember Tom saying something about it," he murmured.

Lennon frowned as he looked at Lyla, she shrugged.

"The prime minister, Isaac's one of his bodyguards."

"Oh," he said softly.

"He said that it was an agreement that happened a few years ago before he was elected. The vampire leader can apply for a sizable tax rebate based on how many residents they have in their area."

"Well, that explains why he said he's all about the numbers. Not sure why he'd knock them off, though."

"But that's not all. If he's running an orphanage as a charity, he will get funding for that and for each child. You were never adopted, were you?"

Lennon shook his head.

"I'll bet that if you searched those files, you'd find that no child has ever been adopted."

"They're not," Merissa murmured. "I was one, and the only other person that I know of is my brother. It's only because Gamichee adopted us."

Isaac frowned as he looked at the werewolf.

"Okay, dumb brain needs a translator. What did he say?"

"Why is he killing the vampires?"

Silence filled the room as they thought about the question. It didn't make sense. Isaac looked at his ex-wife, realising that the answer was right there in front of them.

"Because they got involved," Isaac murmured, gaining their attention. "There are still a lot of vampires in this city, and only a few of them dead by this guy's hand. What if they found out what he was doing, and he had to silence them once and for all?"

If that were the case, it meant that they were in more danger than they thought possible.